Why Did the Hoary Marmot Cross the Road?

            Wow! We, who had never before seen a hoary marmot, nor even really wondered what one looked like, saw two of the creatures on the same day! Some folks from Holland who happened to be driving behind us stopped at the next turnout and asked what the creature was that we had slowed down for and tried to photograph. We didn’t know. Gary guessed a hedgehog, I thought maybe a groundhog, but knew it was too large to be a hedgehog. My other guess was a hyrax. I know I’d heard that name somewhere, but couldn’t’ remember ever seeing one. This thing was probably as large as a beaver, but had a little fuzzy tail like a squirrel and a pointed-looking face. After driving almost to the head of the Salmon Glacier, on the return trip, we saw another one—crossing the road. Still no picture.

            We talked to the Dutch folks for a few minutes, told them how much we’d enjoyed our visit to their country and I tried out my pronunciation of “Schipohl,” the airport in Amsterdam. I’ll never get it right, but they said I’d come pretty close. I was disappointed we couldn’t identify the animal for them, but as luck would have it, they were walking up to the wildlife center I’ll tell about later just as we were leaving and I was able to tell them what it was. They had heard of marmots before, and after wrangling with “hoary” and trying to think of a European equivalent (rime), we got the idea across and everyone left happy.

            Our blog has been pretty silent for a few days. We were  not idle, however. After spending a wonderful weekend in Seward and thinking it just didn’t get any better than a halibut dinner at Ray’s on the waterfront, it did get better. We backtracked from Seward, past Anchorage, then turned toward Destruction Bay on the Alaskan Highway. The drive through the Wrangell Mountains was another of those breath-taking drives through some of the most gorgeous scenery that can’t be described and that pictures can’t convey. There were several glaciers and waterfalls and seemingly unending ranges of peaks reaching into the clouds.

We spent one night camped on the Copper River in the middle of nowhere at a place called Gakona. Most of our fellow campers appeared to be workers working on the telephone lines and right-of-way. There were some young people on a motorcycle camping in a tent. Ah, the resilience of youth. The morning we pulled out the temperature registered 34 degrees.

            That evening, after a rockinghorse ride over the heaves and around blood-curdling curves, we reached Destruction Bay. Destruction Bay is on the largest lake in the Yukon and its name escapes me for the moment. The lake is beautiful. The weather was chilly, clouds were looming, and we found the reason the place is named Destruction Bay. There was a camp there during World War II. The enlisted men were in barracks down near what is now a small village. The officers were higher up on a hill, where the campground  now sits. A storm came through with winds approaching 200 miles per hour and wiped out the enlisted men’s tents and many of the men. The camp was never rebuilt.

            The campground owner caters to caravans of motor homes and campers who plan their stopovers with him. He has a live band (don’t know where the musicians come from, the woods, I suppose), and great food. The bread is all homemade and we had it for breakfast the morning we left. They were getting ready for the last caravan of the year to come through the day we left, then they’d spend a week or two closing up. We saw fresh snow on the  mountain tops that already had some caps they keep year-round.

            We stopped at the end of the lake for pictures and met a young couple from Belgium who had been over last year and toured part of the lower 48. This year they were on their way to Alaska. We told them how much we’d enjoyed our river cruise in their country a couple of years ago. Later in the day when we stopped at a rest area we met two couples and the ten-year-old son of one of them. They were traveling in a 1980’s-era bus that they have converted to run on cooking oil. They have been living and traveling on the bus for about two years now. They work at odd jobs, sell some of their artwork and crafts, get their fuel from restaurants, and were from Charleston, South Carolina. If you’d like to learn more about these artists, check out their website at transitantenna.com. You never know who you’ll meet on the Alaskan Highway! We saw a camper today that had a bumper sticker from South of the Border plastered across its rear.

            We retraced part of our earlier route past Whitehorse, where we had stayed for one night. This time we arrived about one p.m. and I searched until I found a hair salon so I could get a trim. After that was taken care of we stopped at the Beringia Interpretive Center and learned a little about the mammoths, 800-pound beavers and other interesting creatures that have been found in the vicinity.

            We arrived in Stewart, BC, on Saturday afternoon, early enough to drive the couple of miles into town from the campground and get a look around. It still doesn’t get dark until almost ten p.m.  We drove through the tiny town, along the Portland Canal, where we saw logs floating awaiting transfer to ships. There isn’t much industry in Stewart. We ate dinner at the King Edward Hotel, for which we paid a kingly price, then drove on out of town and into Hyder, Alaska. Hyder is even smaller than Stewart, but very charming. When you go to Hyder, there is no U.S. Customs Office. If you go from Stewart to Hyder, you gotta come back on the same road, so only the Canadians have an office at the border crossing. What happens in Hyder either stays in Hyder or goes back to Stewart. There is only one road.

As an aside, we are amazed at the number of cyclists calmly pedaling their way up these mountains. Sometimes alone. The pastor at the Stewart church told us they had once had a visitor, from North Carolina no less, who had pedaled across the continent and was on his way to Prudhoe Bay. We could only shudder at the thought. Remembering that we actually camped in tents in our “good old days” is hard enough to deal with. We like having the comforts of home in our Prowler.

            Sunday morning we attended church at the Stewart Community Church. It was great to be with other Christians again. A youth group from Alberta was in Stewart for the second year, putting siding provided by their church on the Stewart Church building. The youth led the service and the young preacher did a great job. Afterwards we were invited for sandwiches, but after chatting awhile we left to head for the scenic highway to Hyder.

            The thing both towns have going for them is the view. Stewart has a glacier you can see from almost any point in the town. Hyder’s view isn’t as dramatic, but what they lack in view, they make up with by having a bus. The bus restaurant that serves “mermaid chowder,” which is to die for—and they have bears.

            The single road that runs from Stewart to Hyder continues on up for 25 or so miles, past some old mines, gorgeous scenery following the course of the Salmon River and ends at the top of the Salmon Glacier. The Salmon Glacier is the fifth-largest in British Columbia and one of the few you can drive up to. We didn’t go all the way to the top because the clouds had rolled in. I mentioned seeing the strange creature which turned out to be a hoary marmot. We also saw a black bear walking across the road. On our way back to Stewart this time we stopped at the wildlife viewing area run by the National Park Service. They have built a walkway out over the river, high above where the bears come to fish.

            The folks at church had told us to go early in the morning or about eight p.m. We happened to be there about six, and had almost decided to return to the camper for a nap, then come back, when two young grizzlies came galloping out of the forest, under the walkway and splashed their way into the stream. According to the wildlife officers they are four-year-old male siblings. Apparently their mother stays in the area and they have come to know her and her cubs over the years.

            We had been watching the salmon at the end of their spawning run. There were dead salmon lying around the shallow water and a few along the banks. The sea gulls were out in force, eating until they could barely waddle—until the bears showed up. The bears cavorted around up and down the stream for a good little while, chasing the dying salmon into the shallows and chomping down on them.

            It’s sad to think that the salmon go through all the effort to swim from the ocean back to the streams they were born in, only to die at the end, but we discussed how many people and animals depend on this cycle. The native people of the Northwest have for centuries caught and dried the salmon and are still allowed to fish for subsistence. Others are limited in the number they can keep, especially of certain species. The bears fatten themselves for the winter hibernation and many other animals depend on this yearly cycle. Even the eggs and hatchlings provide food for other creatures in the chain. Death is never pretty, but it’s the ugly side of dealing with a fallen world. How wonderful it will be when it’s all made right again!

            We almost hated to leave Stewart, but Monday morning we hitched up and wended our way back to Canada Highway 16 and onto the Yellowhead Highway. We are really on our way home now and look forward to new scenery and sights along the way. The grand mountains and snow-capped peaks have given way to rolling hills and hay fields. We are beginning to come to larger towns closer together. We are in a beautiful area known as Williams Lake. Tomorrow we plan to spend the night in Hope, British Columbia, then on Thursday, we’ll stop in Everett, Washington, and spend a day or two with our niece, Rachel and her family.

Willow to Seward

This blog will have very little writing. The pictures speak more than a thousand words.

The pictures, of course, can’t convey the sense of grandeur that seeing the actual mountains and other formations give, but every time we went around a curve or pulled over at a viewpoint I kept humming the old hymn “I sing the mighty power of God that made the mountains rise, that spread the flowing seas abroad and built the lofty skies. I sing the Wisdom that ordained the sun to rule the day, the moon shines full at His command, and all the stars obey.”

We opted to go to Seward instead of Homer, as we had heard there were both excellent fishing and glacier tours there. Are we ever glad we did! We camped in a campground a few miles from Seward, then drove there after setting up the camper and unhitching the truck. Seward is a very small place, never having completely recovered after the tsunami that struck it after the Great Alaskan Earthquake of 1964. They do have excellent halibut fishing, and in fact, a tournament started on the day we arrived.

We signed up for a tour with Kenai Fjords Tours that left at ten a.m. the next morning, served lunch on the boat and dinner at their lodge on Fox Island. Another excellent choice, recommended by someone at an info center we stopped at. (And incidentally, a large portion of the trip was through Resurrection Bay.)

The captain/naturalist pointed out too many things for our aging brains to remember, but best of all, slowed down, circled, and/or stopped often for us to take pictures of wildlife and scenery. We saw sea otters, Dall’s porpoises  (which look like miniature orcas), harbor seals, sea lions, puffins (two types) and their rookeries, along with other birds, and had several whale sightings of humpbacks. There is a website that has whales identified by the patterns on the undersides of their flukes and the captain was able to i.d. two of the ones we spotted. One was Alphonso, the other was Morgan LeFey (sp?) Morgan was traveling with two other whales which we were unable to i.d. I didn’t get pictures of the flukes when the whales sounded, but several people on board did, so they were able to match them with the computer catalog.

We saw a lot of glaciers, but the boat sailed within a quarter-mile of the edge of the Aialik Glacier. We could hear the rumbling and crackling as it moved, and actually got shots of it calving. The “dirty” looking streaks you see on it are volcanic ash from the recent eruption of  Mt. Redoubt.

One note for our foodie friends: lunch was a turkey wrap, bag of baby carrots and caramel-peanut bar and lemonade. Dinner at Fox Island consisted of prime rib, baked salmon, rice pilaf, corn on the cob, tossed salad, rolls, and various kinds of bar cookies for dessert. We felt like we got more than our $159 worth on this 8.5-hour trip and highly recommend it to anyone traveling this way. (You could add a pound of king crab legs for an additional $15 also.)

Along with Glacier National Park, the Kenai Peninsula has been a highlight of the trip for us so far. I will hush and put up the pictures.

Watson Lake to Dawson City, Yukon Territory and on to Alaska

We made it to the Yukon! It was a fairly easy drive most of the time through some gorgeous scenery. We are in the northern end of the Canadian Rockies. We’ve crossed and driven beside some beautiful rivers, driven through an area devastated by forest fires and actually seen some of the wildlife we keep reading signs about.

Today we saw a forest bison, Stone sheep, mule deer, two caribou, and a black bear. I got photos of the bison, sheep and a caribou, but wasn’t quick enough with the camera for the others. The animals come along the road because there are wide swaths of green on both sides and the grazing is easy.

Of course, we had to have our little SNAFU. This time it was the slide-out on the trailer. When we stop for a potty break we have to slide it out just a few inches in order to get the bathroom door open. Speaking of which: there are very few rest areas on the Alaska Highway. The ones there are are not like those you find on the interstate highways. They are not even Porta-johns. They are outhouses. They are kept pretty clean considering, but if you can bring your own, I’d recommend that. Service stations are few and far between and many are closed. If you don’t have a porta-potty, you might be in dire straits—and believe me, you don’t want to go in the woods. But I was telling a story. We had our potty break. My job is always to see that the pump is off, the slide is IN and the steps are UP. We started to pull away and Gary checked the mirror and said the slide wasn’t in. Uh-oh. Sure enough, one side had slid right into place, but the other end stuck out several inches. He managed to pull and push it into place and we went on our way to Watson Lake.

Watson Lake is one of those places that sprang up during the war when the road was being built. They even have a motel here that was built in 1942 for the Air Force. Watson Lake’s main claim to fame is the signpost forest. There are thousands of signposts (and you’re invited to bring one and add to the collection) from all over the world. One that jumped out at me was Petoskey—we were there last year in the boat. It’s in Michigan. Anyway, a GI with nothing better to do started the signpost forest and it’s grown and grown over the years. It’s pretty neat.

Watson Lake has a supermarket, several fuel depots and RV parks/motels. It also has a home store where you can buy things like bolts. It’s a typical Yukon sort of place. The RV park is just a big piece of level ground covered in gravel with electric and water hookups at regular intervals. It’s a short walk to Wye Lake, but we don’t care for mosquitoes, and besides, Gary was pretty tired after dealing with the slide-out.

First we had to level the truck and camper. In order to avoid unhooking the truck and thus having to re-hook in the  morning, we try to find a place level enough to just leave it be. This often entails my hauling 2 x 6 boards around and sticking them under various wheels and Gary backing or driving the truck and/or camper wheels onto them. You might know that with all the worry over what we’d find wrong with the slide-out, we had to have two boards under both rear truck wheels and one under the left side of the trailer.

This meant my sticking the long board under the trailer wheel, his pulling the first of the two wheels onto it, my signaling him to stop, running and putting two shorter boards, slightly offset, under the rear truck tires and his rolling onto them at the same time the rear trailer tire is pulled up to join its twin on the long board.

Watching the stout lady do all this “board maneuvering” must be almost as much fun as watching the novice camper do the dreaded pumpout. And the worst part is Gary’s deafness. I can’t yell and tell him to stop, everything has to be done with hand signals and he’s always yelling out the cab, “What does that mean?” So I have to calmly walk up to his window and yell back at him what I meant. In the meantime the truck has rolled forward or back off the boards and it’s all to do over again.

Joy of joys, though, the problem with the slide-out was a simple matter of a bolt that had come out of something that connected something else to the big screw thingy that runs the thing in and out. Gary was able to get down on his tire-changing mat and find the problem very quickly. Only the forward end of the slide was connecting to the thingy. He didn’t have a bolt, but a large screw worked until we got a replacement bolt at the aforementioned home supply store. We feel like things have gone very well for having come over 5,000 miles. We’re very blessed and we know Who’s responsible.

We went through a 60-kilometer stretch of highway which had signs posted telling travelers not to stop, that there was an active forest fire. We could see smoke coming up ahead of us and saw acres and acres of burnt forest, but never actually saw the fire itself. We could smell the smoke, though, and that was bad enough. We talked to a forest worker who told us the fire had been burning since sometime in June. It’s a horrible sight, but they have learned it has good effects also. They don’t try to put them out any more, just keep them from spreading to homes and businesses.

Next we made a stop in Whitehorse, then from there to Dawson City, site of the famous Klondike Gold Rush. We stayed at a fairly scenic place in Whitehorse, which surprised us at how large it is. It has things like car dealerships and is a city in the true sense of the word. While doing the laundry I talked with a couple from Anchorage on their way to Calgary and a young man from Vancouver whose dad was employed rebuilding the bridge across the river going into Whitehorse from the south. All we have to do is open our mouths and people know we aren’t from “around here.”

Whitehorse was the starting point for many of the sternwheelers that steamed up and down the Yukon and Klondike rivers, carrying people and goods to and from the gold fields. At the height of the gold rush many of the boats were built in Whitehorse and carried the fortune hunters up to Dawson City, as well as hauling out the gold that only a few of them found.

We were told by several fellow travelers that Alaska is full of smoke from forest fires. They were telling the truth. Truth is, the smoke is all the way up into Canada, and there are several fires burning in both places. We decided to take the Klondike Trail on leaving Whitehorse and soon found ourselves smelling smoke. We could see the haze of it lying over the mountains, too. We stopped several miles outside Whitehorse for breakfast and found they had the world’s largest cinnamon buns. The airstrip across the road had a sign that read: “Cinnamon Bun Strip.” Before our breakfast order arrived a tour bus stopped and they snapped up the buns very quickly. We had already gotten ours to enjoy later. Which we did.

We dallied along, stopping often to walk around and take pictures and drink in the scenery. We passed Lake LaBerge, the setting for Robert Service’s poem “The Cremation of Sam McGee.” It’s called LaBarge in the poem. I wasn’t able to get a photo because of the trees along the highway and there was no turnout. The road was fairly good, although there were a lot of “heaves” in it and Gary quickly learned that you speed up a hill, then slow down on the way down, because there’s invariably a rough spot at the bottom where the road can be washed out. Road work is a constant factor to take into consideration when planning a day’s travel. At the campgrounds all the drivers (usually the males, of course) get together and compare notes: east vs. west,  north vs. south to get the latest delay reports.

After driving what appeared to be endless miles through endless forest we arrived in Dawson City. It is postcard quaint. The town streets are all dirt, bordered in the most tourist-infested parts with board sidewalks. Most of the buildings are either logs or board siding, even the government buildings. Some are painted in crazy Victorian colors, others are allowed to weather to antique gray. We pulled into the Gold Rush Campground and RV Park and were happy to see that the slide was working fine. We set up and got busy. The poor camper is so filthy from all the dusty roads that it looks pathetic. But why wash it? It’s all to go through again tomorrow. The first order of business when we park is to swab down everything inside because it’s wall to wall dust everywhere. Once that’s done, though, we can kick back and relax. We had left Whitehorse early because we didn’t know what the road conditions would be like and it had been a long day. There are 20 hours of daylight this time of year and it’s a little hard to get to sleep at times.

During the night I woke up to hear pattering on the skylight. A light rain fell, not much, but it did settle the dust somewhat, and the front that brought it cooled us down from the 80’s to the 60’s. It didn’t clear out the smoke, though, those fires were (and are) still burning.

In the morning Gary took the truck to the pressure washer. It didn’t get it completely clean, but it looked a lot better. After he got back we drove into town and went to the museum. It was very interesting, had a lot of stuff on gold mining and the foundation of the town. I was shocked to learn that in spite of the mining town atmosphere they had major law enforcement early on and that there was not a single murder in the town during the gold rush heyday. The Mounties rigidly controlled many things, including work on Sundays, but drinking, gambling and prostitution were rampant.

There are a number of old wooden churches around town. Missionaries had come to the Yukon early on from a number of denominations. It’s funny that you hear a lot about the dance halls and saloons, and that’s a big part of the mining history, but there were churches, schools and hard-working people who were the backbone of the community and the descendants of quite a few are still here. The gold rush was short-lived and Dawson City soon became more settled and families came to join the miners and others who chose to stay there

One of the famous pictures from the gold rush era is of the long line of men toiling up the long, long stairway at the Chillkoot Pass. The stairway rose from the river where the supply boats docked and the miners were not allowed to enter Yukon Territory without a year’s worth of provisions. They toiled up that stairway with one load after another till they got their supplies to the top, then had the tedious job of going to try to stake a claim. Turns out that the best claims had already been staked by the time the majority arrived. As you approach the town from the south side there are piles and piles of river rock that have been dredged up, put through the modern-day equivalent of a “rocker” to sift out the gold, then dumped in enormous heaps. The campground we stayed in has the old buckets that were used to dig out the river bottoms turned upside down, painted blue with white numbers marking campsites. Others are used as planters for flowers and vegetables. Reuse and recycle.

Another problem was the permafrost. Many miners just hacked frozen stone out during the winter and had to wait until summer when it thawed to find out how much, if any gold they had mined.

We watched two documentary films at the museum about life in Dawson years ago and how they deal with 40-below temperatures today. Cars have to be treated carefully. When it’s too cold, even engine oil and fuel will turn to gel. We allowed as how the South has its advantages. After the museum we had lunch at “Sourdough Joe’s.” Expensive, but good food. We bought a loaf of sourdough bread which we ate with our soup for supper back at the camper.

There is still mining going on today. Gary and I talked to a fellow from New York who has been living here 30 years and makes a living mining. He showed us his three prize nuggets. All were over an inch across. He said he’s semi-retired now, but still does a little mining. There’s still gold around here, but it’s hard work to get to it and get it out.

The next day we were back in the U.S. We crossed the border about two p.m. at Beaver Creek, population two, (both border patrol agents) and headed for Tok, Alaska. We were driving the “Top of the World” highway. The world has a very dusty top. The camper and truck looked like they had been in a mud bog. In addition, there was still a lot of smoke. We were somewhat disappointed because we had been told the scenery was spectacular. The smoke had settled in the valleys so that when we pulled over at scenic view spots, there was no view, scenic or otherwise.

We stopped at one rest area and saw an old miner’s cabin that was partially collapsed. At another, called Boundary, there were several cabins, men’s and women’s outhouses and signs of fairly recent occupation. One old cabin had plexiglass inserted in the front and back doors so that you could look in and see the old wood cookstove, an ancient upright piano and other signs of better days, slowly falling into ruin. One sign said in huge letters: “BEST COFFEE IN BOUNDARY.” I suppose it was at one time. We made a pot in the camper before we headed on across the Top of the World. For one day at least, WE had the best coffee in Boundary.

A bright spot in the day was the little community of Chicken, Alaska. The story goes that the miners who founded the town wanted to name it ptarmigan but none knew how to spell it, so they settled on “Chicken.” There is a big lodge and campground and a sign pointing to the “Lost Chicken Mine,” but we were intrigued by the one that said “Downtown Chicken” and had an arrow pointing left. We stirred up a cloud of yellow dust and headed downtown. There, all in a row, stood the Chicken Mercantile, Chicken Saloon and Chicken Café. There were all sorts of tourist trap items with “Chicken, Alaska” on them. I bought a coffee mug with a drawing of downtown Chicken. Gary got a cap. And we had a find lunch. He had a bison burger and I had a salmon burger.

Before we left a couple of tour groups showed up. The young men behind the counter were bantering with everyone and you could tell they get a lot of fun out of living and working in Chicken. It’s a rare opportunity.

We finally pulled into Tok and a wonderful campground. It was really woodsy and the campsites were not cheek-by-jowl with each other. We had to walk back to the office to use the wi-fi and we’ve just given up on TV totally, but the exercise was good for us, and it was a pleasant evening too. There didn’t seem to be quite as much smoke, either. After wiping down the inside of the camper, eating supper and enjoying the breeze, we slept well. Maggie enjoyed a little time “out” also. When a fellow camper who was talking with Gary left and said, “Stay safe,” Maggie called out,” Bye,” to him. But she wouldn’t say hello to two ladies strolling by a little later.

Next morning we headed for a service station that advertised “Free Wash with Fillup.” They know their advertising strategy! We had to wait in line for the pressure washer and Gary gave the truck and camper a once-over, even getting the brush out and getting some, but not all of the suicidal bugs off. Then we were off to find a road house and breakfast. We drove for quite awhile without finding one. Then we saw a sign “Dot Lake.” Gary felt sure we’d find a delicious breakfast there. There were a school, a post office and several log residences, but no food establishment of any sort. We finally broke out the pecan sandies and fig newtons I had luckily brought along.

We zinged along, passing through North Pole, Alaska, which has all the tacky stuff you’d associate with a town named North Pole, zoomed around Fairbanks, and headed south again, looking for that perfect road house for lunch. About 20 miles outside Fairbanks we broke out the leftovers and ate in the camper.

We arrived in Clear, Alaska, fairly early in the evening and found we were the only campers in one part of the campground. It is beautiful, set in a grove of birch trees. It’s obviously quiet and peaceful. And cheap. Apparently the main attraction here is the gift shop, which has a lot of high-quality Alaskan handcrafts, plus the usual t-shirts and bric-a-brac. It’s run by a family and they have a lush garden in the yard—surrounded by an electric fence—and a greenhouse with lots of tomato plants.

They have a plane, too, and the noisiest thing we’ve heard since we’ve been here was the plane taking off and returning about an hour later. It’s typically Alaskan, down to the stuffed polar bear in the gift shop, moose antlers on walls inside and out, and old animal traps too rusted to be useful any more.

We decided to spend two nights here in this peaceful place, and drove the 35 or so miles to Denali this morning. At Healy we found the road house we’d been looking for for two days. Rosie’s was exactly what we were looking for: great breakfast, homey atmosphere, and the lady who waited on us knew the family Mom and I met in Healy when we were here 34 years ago. They had two daughters and one of them had given Mom a rock with a leaf fossil in it.  The waitress had even worked at the motel/campground we had stayed at when Bill was a baby.

We considered taking a bus tour, but opted to just drive the 15 miles to Savage Creek ourselves. It was a beautiful drive, and wonder of wonders—one of Deanli’s “out days.” From the part of the park we were in the mountain doesn’t look so high, but you know it is because it is covered in snow. We went around a curve and there it was, in the “V” between two mountains closer to ous. We’ll head toward Anchorage tomorrow and hopefully be able to see it more from the south side.

As we drove through Denali National Park we saw fires burning in the distance, at least we saw the smoke from them. It is apparently all going into Canada now, and eastern Alaska, because by the time we arrived back at the campground there hardly seemed to be any. We’ll take off in the morning and head for salmon fishing. Gary keeps reminding me that this is really just a fishing trip with a little scenery thrown in.

Dawson Creek to Fort Nelson to Toad River, British Columbia

Here we are on the Alaskan Highway. We’ve come through some beautiful territory in British Columbia. We arrived in Dawson Creek, mile zero of the Alaskan Highway, possibly remembered by some of  you as the “AlCan Highway.” The highway has changed a lot since its inception and building during World War II. I won’t go into the particulars, but they’re easily available on sites such as Wikipedia. It’s an interesting story for anyone interested in the particulars.

We had a delightful time in Dawson Creek. We stayed at the Mile 0 RV Park Saturday and Sunday nights. We had a corner lot, directly across from the laundromat. We spent Saturday afternoon resting up, getting the oil changed in the man truck, cleaning up the camper and vegetating. It was nice to sit back and realize we didn’t have to get up and hook up the camper Sunday morning and pull out.

We were even able to take Maggie outside without fear of her flying off. Her wings are severely clipped so that she can’t do more than jump and she got frustrated when she could hear us sitting outside the door talking. I have a little harness/leash thing that I bought and tried on her a long time ago, but she goes bonkers when I try to put it on her. I got it out again and she got so caught up in trying to chew it to pieces that she didn’t even realize when we stepped outside and she didn’t have it on. She sat on my knee chewing on the thing for quite awhile, getting head scratches and looking around.

We had checked about local churches on the internet and Gary noticed that there was a small Baptist church right next to the campground when he took the truck to get the oil changed. It was only a short walk across the grass to the building rented by New Beginnings Baptist Church. We were so glad we went! The pastor, Michael Stark, is a native of Kansas who has worked planting churches all over the western U.S. and Canada. He hit a high note with Gary when he told him North Carolina is o.k, but the moose and elk hunting suck. It’s still a small church number-wise, but I doubt it will stay that way long. The people were very friendly and most everyone was gathered around the coffee pot and pastry tray when we entered. One of the announcements was that you were welcome to help yourself at any time during the service.

The sermon was hard-hitting. As one lady told me, “If you come to church to be made to feel good, you’d better find another church.” I jokingly told the pastor afterwards that I needed to go home and nurse my wounds. As it turned out, we didn’t leave right after the service. Just our “luck,” the church had planned a picnic after the service and invited us to stay. Would we say no and hurt the feelings of these fine people? Not on your life! We had a good meal and great conversation. And we’ll see these fine folks again someday. If you’d like to hear a good sermon, go to www.NewBeginningsBaptist.ca.

We chilled and napped the rest of the day, preparing for the big event of Monday morning—on to the Alaskan Highway. We got (for us) an early start and merrily rolled along mile after green mile. We are back in lodgepole pine country and you can see the damage done by pine borers. Acres of dark green trees with the rusty orange of dead trees making horrible splotches of ugly in the beauty.

British Columbia is a beautiful province. It is very rural. There are tiny settlements separated by l—o—n—-g stretches of highway. There are “look out for wildlife” signs everywhere along the highway. We haven’t seen the first wild thing yet, although we did see some elk farms in Alberta where they actually raise them for meat. The poor things probably think they are in heaven: Wow, all we can eat without browsing and foraging. Gee, they bring this hay and stuff right here for us to eat! Maybe people aren’t so bad as we thought. “Hey, George, why do you reckon they’re wanting us to line up in this here chute? Oh well, as long as they keep the hay coming . . . .”

We saw vast fields of hay and more canola in B.C. and the highway has obviously been worked on since 1943. The agreement with Canada when the AlCan was built was that the U.S. would foot the bill, then turn the highway over to Canada six months after the end of the war. Since then Canada has taken out a lot of the switchbacks and straightened a good bit of it. At one rest stop we saw a sign that showed a portion of the road that had been re-routed. It said that there were several theories about why the roads were built that way in the first place. One was that it was for the engineers to practice doing curves, another was that the Japanese, when they arrived, would not be able to strafe as well on curves.

We spent Monday night in Fort Nelson. It was pretty dry and dusty at the Bluebell Motel/Service Station/Grill/Campground & RV Park, but they had water and electricity. We could theoretically do without them, but it’s easier if we have them, especially if there’s a pumpout.

There’s a whole lot of drilling going on around here. We ate breakfast at a hotel that had old drill bits lined up along the walk leading to the front door. Many of the businesses are connected to drilling for either water or oil, possibly both. The ones that don’t directly connect to drilling in some way are there to service the ones that do. And the breakfasts they serve are fit for a wildcatter.

We went through some more gorgeous scenery between Fort Nelson and Toad River. The mountains just go on and on, one range after another. In some places the road goes straight for kilometer after kilometer. The don’t use miles here any more, although the old mile markers are still used to denote places. Toad River is at mile marker 422. We crest a hill and see another mountain range behind what we thought was the last one.

The story of how Toad River got its name is that when they were building the highway, of course there were no bridges, so this was the “towed river.” But someone didn’t know the difference between “towed” and “toad.” The “town” consists  of an airstrip (with a big sign saying “Keep off the airstrip”) a motel/gas station/RV park/gift shop and possibly the world’s largest collection of caps nailed to the ceiling of the restaurant/gift shop.

Our camper is parked next to the lake, and after dinner we sat and watched the sun start to set. It doesn’t get dark now until nearly 10:30 p.m. Maggie sat with us awhile too. We saw a moose across the lake eating her evening meal. I tried to get a picture, but she didn’t show up, even with the zoom all the way out.

The folks next to us had the back window of their Jeep Cherokee pop out today. They are on their way to Fairbanks to visit their son. They had a plastic mat to lie on for changing tires, so just spread that over the window till they get home to Michigan. Repairs are very expensive—as is most everything else out here.

Our poor Prowler is probably going to be pretty beat up when we get home, too. First, we had to take the trim pieces off the dinette seats. Every time one of us slid in or out they creaked and threatened to come off anyway. The next thing to go was the drawers under the wardrobe in the bathroom. I didn’t know they were designed to hold something about the weight of a feather pillow, so I filled them with wet wipes, bathmats, toilet chemicals and a few odds and ends. Turns out they are (were) supported by balsa wood attached to more balsa wood with staples. Now they are in the back of the truck because Gary can’t get down on his knees to fix them. Next to go was the convenient shelf that holds toiletries and can be conveniently slid into little notches above the toilet and be convenient while one is doing one’s toilette. The convenient shelf was attached to slides attached to balsa wood with staples. Now the inconvenient shelf rests on top of the supply of toilet paper I had stashed underneath it. I hope the floor isn’t attached to balsa wood with staples. We didn’t bring a Sears & Roebuck catalog with us.

I told Gary as long as the bed doesn’t collapse and the toilet keeps working we’ll be o.k. Sort of like the boat. But it is nice having an oven and a fridge that I can get more than a stick of butter and a quart of milk in. The bed is on a board-type thing. I just hope it’s not held in place by staples. If it is we’ll find ourselves sleeping on a pile of boots and heavy jackets we brought for the cold weather that we haven’t seen any of yet.

The Alaskan Highway is mostly good road. But when it’s bad, it’s horrid. There are places called “heaves” that are pretty aptly named. The road heaves and the truck goes down while the trailer goes up, then they switch places and bounce pretty good. Things you thought were securely lashed are found in strange places when you stop. Also, there is a lot of gravel being used on the road. That causes dust. Lots of fine, fine dust. It’s most everywhere. Fortunately, it’s so fine you can’t feel it grinding away the enamel on your teeth. The scenery makes up for all this. If you wait for the dust to settle you can get some great photos.

Tomorrow we’re on our way to Watson Lake. We’re getting close to the Yukon now.

(Sorry, no pictures, I can’t find the camera cord. It’s probably in the truck and I’m ready for bed. I’ll put them in the next blog.) 

Mile Zero of the Alaska Highway

Not a lot of pictures this time. Not a lot of news, for that matter. We left Columbia Falls, Montana, bright and early (well, not really early, but for me it wasn’t late, either). We retraced our path from the day before around the southern end of Glacier National Park and on around up the eastern side. We couldn’t haul the trailer across the Highway to the Sun, which crosses the park almost in the center. There is still wondrous scenery, but not as great as that in the park itself. After rounding the “bottom” of the park we headed north up the eastern side and into Canada.

In Canada we saw gorgeous grain fields and vast acres of something with yellow flowers that we didn’t recognize. It obviously was a crop, not just wildflowers, despite their beauty. We stopped at a restaurant not far from the border for lunch and the lady who waited on us informed us the crop is canola. So now we know where canola oil comes from. Canola was developed from rapeseed by two Canadians. According to Wikipedia, the name comes from Canadian Oil Low Acid. It is considered very healthy for humans, and the crop is also made into cattle feed. It has become a major cash crop in many places in the world. Turns out we get more than just petroleum oil from Canada. The Canadians are drilling. We saw quite a few oil wells and a number of drilling rigs.

The United States and Canada have indeed been blessed by God and we should be very careful to remember to thank Him. An example of how blessed we’ve been on this trip took place in the afternoon not far south of Calgary, home of the famous Calgary Stampede, an almost month-long rodeo that takes place every summer. We were tootling along without a care in the world when all of a sudden we heard a whump-whump-whump and the trailer started pulling oddly. Sure enough. Another blowout. This time, though, we realized what had happened in time to avoid ruining the rim, although the tire was torn all to pieces.

This time, too, Gary was ready with the hydraulic jack, I didn’t have to haul a board out to whack him and a kind gentleman on the service road hopped through the barb-wire fence and hurried over to help us. We are greatly indebted to Mr. Lloyd Haven, who lived nearby. While Gary lay on the ground and operated the jack, Mr. Haven removed the lug nuts, I rolled the new tire up (thank the Lord, we’d bought a new one “just in case” in South Dakota), the two of them wriggled it on and Mr. Haven tightened the nuts. Gary let the jack down, and after exchanging handshakes and getting some advice on getting through Calgary during rush hour, we went on our merry way.

We spent the night at a campground near Calgary and next morning hauled buggy for a tire store. A nice young man replaced three of the tires on the trailer and we kept the best of the three old ones  for a spare. One of the ones we were riding on was the repaired spare we had put on in Yellowstone. It is a used tire, but in good shape. Our five-year-old ones were apparently dry rotting. There was a split starting in one of the ones that was pulled off. So now we are rolling on four new tires and have two spares just-in-case.

We have been a bit surprised at how warm it’s been, but the lack of humidity keeps it reasonable. The countryside is beautiful rolling prairie lush with crops, cattle and horses. We have seen many camping trailers and RVs also. Apparently a lot of Canadians head south for the winter, just like they do in the States.

Gary stops often to check the tires. So far they’re doing fine. At one of our stops we pulled into a rest stop and brewed a pot of coffee. While we were waiting on the coffee to drip, a fellow pulled up and asked if we were using the picnic table. We told him to help himself and offered some fresh coffee. He declined, but we sat down for a chat while he ate his sandwich. We were intrigued by his cap, which had a slogan: “God is Good. All the Time.” Turned out he was on his way to Bible Camp to pick up his wife. He reminded us of another friend, born in Canada, the minister who married us, Mr. Fred Gladstone. We had a nice chat with him. His name is Charles Almond—he said “a real nut.”

We spent Friday night at a really neat campground near Sangudo, Alberta, just west of Edmonton. There were a number of “local” people who lived only an hour or so away who came to spend the weekend or a week. It reminded us of Daddy Joe’s back home. Quite a few of the campers knew each other from previous outings. The couple who own the place have a museum of odds and ends they’ve collected from estate sales and such over the last four years. They also have a cabin from pioneer days they bought, had moved to the site and set up complete with wood cook stove, a cowhide and bearskin, plus all sorts of old-fashioned tools and things.

In the yard is an outhouse with a stuffed scarecrow-like figure “peeping” in a hole in the side. The door invites you to see “what Tom is peeping at.” I couldn’t resist, opened the door, and a claxon-like alarm sounded that could be heard throughout the campground. I didn’t even look around to see who was laughing at another sucker being caught. There were also antique tractors and cars set up around the property. One neat thing they recycled was the drums of old washing machines with drainage holes all over them. They had handles and a set of wheels welded or screwed on and were used as firepits.

We were parked next to a couple who had their campsite enclosed by a plastic fence to keep their two shih tzus from wandering away. They lived only an hour or so away and came to the park often. They gave us some information about the Alaskan Highway and ensured us that we are in for a real treat.

Today we headed northwest again, and are spending the weekend in a nice, shady campground in Dawson Creek, “MILE ZERO OF THE ALASKAN HIGHWAY.” We lost another hour and are into the Pacific Time Zone. We can only get the Edmonton Canadian Television channel on TV. Guess I didn’t want to watch it anyway!

Thanks to all those who are praying for us. We are having a wonderful time and, except for the problems with tires, have had a great trip so far. Maggie had all but stopped talking, but this afternoon she has apparently found her voice again. She has been begging to “go sew,” calling “Gary!!” and whistling up a storm. I guess the air in British Columbia agrees with her.

Glacier National Park

After leaving Butte, we traveled north in Montana through some beautiful country. Part of the time we followed the Flathead River. The valley floor, scoured by glaciers, was bordered by rugged mountains on both sides. It was obvious that fishing is a big industry along with agriculture and ranching.

The valley was dotted with ranches. We were amazed at the irrigation systems. One end is anchored at a well, then the huge, long frames, holding sprayers, roll around on tires in a huge circle. (While it’s dry in general, there is obviously a lot of water underground.) Under the irrigators the fields are various shades of green and ripple with wheat, alfalfa and other crops. Where two irrigators cross paths there is often a pie-shaped piece of barren ground where big stacks of hay bales are stored.

Now we are back at our camper after a day spent in one of the most awe-inspiring places on earth. I always thought Yellowstone and the Tetons were the most scenic places in this country. I’ve changed my mind. We are both so glad that Gary sat next to the man at Old Faithful who recommended we stop here. I wish we had gotten his name or e-mail address. Gary gave him a card with our website on it and I only hope he reads this blog so he will know how much we appreciate the advice.

We left Columbia Falls, where we have the camper set up in an RV park, about nine in the morning. We fueled up the man truck, grabbed a bite of breakfast and headed for the park. At first it seemed almost like a routine national park. We went to a visitor center, got a map of the roads through the park, and headed east on the Going-to-the-Sun Road.

The first part of the trip we just wound around the edge of Lake McDonald. The water in the lake is a beautiful shade of green. Gradually we left the valley floor and began winding around a mountain road that eventually fell off to what appeared to me to be at least a million feet. Any of my family can tell you I have a strong stomach and love traveling in the mountains, but some of the views we passed made my stomach lurch. I wouldn’t have missed this trip for anything, but I reminded Gary constantly to watch the road and let me take pictures for him to look at later. To say that the view was breathtaking is a huge understatement. I only wish the pictures had a hint of the beauty and majesty of the actual scenes in them.

There was one stretch of road that was not blasted from the side of the mountain in the way these roads so often are built. This stretch runs over a “shelf” left by the huge glacier that carved part of the valley. The only thing between us and a million-foot drop was a low rock wall. I told Gary I didn’t know whether to wear my seat belt or not. It was hard to decide whether it would be better to be thrown from the truck and die instantly, or to ride the truck belted in all the way down so I wouldn’t miss the scenery as it passed by.

I know this sounds scary, but it was well worth the terror of riding along the edge of eternity. At every curve in the road there was a more beautiful vista. I told Gary I wish I had brought my thesaurus. There must be another adjective to use besides awesome. If you have a thesaurus handy, pick it up and fill in the blank.

One interesting note about Glacier: There is an extension of Glacier in Canada called Waterton Lakes National Park. The two together are known as the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park World Heritage Site. We really enjoyed visiting Canada last spring and met some great people there. As one Canadian told me, “The US-Canadian border is only an imaginary line on a map. We are essentially the same people.”

We spent our entire day driving through and around Glacier, and if we weren’t so tired (I rode the brake and “helped” Gary drive every inch!) I’d go again tomorrow. And go we will, but this time, Lord willing, we’ll be pulling the Prowler and heading around the south end of the park, up the east side and on to Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

One note: If you plan to come here, we’d recommend spending several days. There is just so much you can see as a “drive-by,” but we have to keep on keeping on. This is one of those places you should drive straight to and then spend several days exploring. That would, of course, be the ideal way to plan a visit to any of the national parks. The really mind-blowing thing to us was the young, healthy, lean, young people “doing” Glacier on bicycles. There are several concessions in the park that carry groups of sightseers in buses with canvas tops that roll back. We could not take the trailer into the park past a certain point. On the Road-to-the-Sun there is a length limit of 21 feet overall for vehicles. I won’t continue the drivel, but let the pictures speak for themselves.

America the Beautiful

We have covered well over 3,000 miles and enjoyed most minutes of it. Had one little incident that I’ll describe later. After leaving Iowa City we drove through Iowa and into South Dakota. Awesome is such an overused word these days that I hesitate to describe the scenery using it, but it’s the first one that comes to mind.

Everywhere we go it seems that each state has its own type of beauty that makes it distinct from the ones surrounding it. South Dakota has a lot of corn, not so much as Iowa, but a lot. Its fields look different though, because there are a lot of other crops grown here also. The wind rippling across the fields makes them look literally like a green sea. There is a loop road that runs through the Badlands National Park and we decided to spend the hour or so it was supposed to take and were we ever glad we did! The Badlands appear to be desert, and I supposed technically they are, but it’s also alive with flora and fauna. We had a good laugh when we rounded a curve, saw some little mounds, and up popped one groundhog, then another. I’m including some pictures, but nothing can do justice to the  sight of the clay and rock formations stretching to the horizon. The Badlands may be aptly named, but they are beautiful.

I told Gary it’s a good thing that Algore wasn’t here 35 million years ago when these formations were supposedly formed. (The whole area looks suspiciously like runoff from a really big Flood to an untrained dimwit like myself.) All this beauty and “badness” is the result of “climate change.” Another irony is that the black-footed ferret, once thought to be extinct, is alive and well and ferreting around in the Badlands.

A little aside here. I heard that some folks reading the blog did not realize you can click on the pictures and enlarge them. Also, if you hold the cursor on the picture for just a second before clicking a title of sorts shows up. It’s usually pretty abbreviated, but gives an idea of what is being shown.

After the Badlands, Mount Rushmore was almost a letdown. It’s impressive, but somehow God’s handiwork seems to win out for creativity. But we did the Mount Rushmore thing, bought a coffee mug for my “Tacky Coffee Mug Museum,” and had some nice soft ice cream. We called the campground where we’d made reservations, told them we’d be late and headed for Mitchell, South Dakota, where we spent the night.

Gary noticed when we set up the camper that one of the tires was a little slack. He pumped it up, and next morning had new valve stems put in all the trailer tires while we ate breakfast at the local grocery/deli/grill. I found out that “German Eggs” consist of bits of ham, sausage and bacon mixed with shredded hash browns, all held together with scrambled eggs. Quite tasty! After visiting “The Corn Palace,” off we rolled, into Wyoming. The Corn Palace is a building in downtown Mitchell that has different scenes “painted” on it every year with ears of corn, shocks of wheat, etc. It’s unusual to say the least.

Another state, different scenery. Wyoming is truly cowboy country. The crops here ran more and more to hay and wheat and less corn. We also saw pronghorn antelope feeding in fields as if they had no cares in the world. They probably know when hunting season starts.

Early Friday afternoon we pulled into Yellowstone National Park. Wouldn’t you know it. I had bought a $10 senior citizen’s pass to all the national parks and we pull into Yellowstone on a day when they were letting everyone in free.

Fortunately, Gary had called ahead and gotten us a reservation at a campground named Bridge Bay, about 30 miles from the east entrance. A lot of folks were turned away. We’d gone about a mile when a fellow motioned us to pull over. When we did he yelled that we were running on a rim on one of the rear trailer tires. Ouch! Sure enough, the tire was shredded and part of it was caught on the axle.

Travel trailers can’t be jacked up like cars. The jacker has to crawl part-way underneath the thing and contort himself in order to work the jack. It’s not a pretty sight, watching a fat guy do such a thing. And of course, helpful soul that I am, I fetched things like the 2×6 that Gary needed to set the jack up on. I tried to pass the board to him just as he stuck him arm out from under the trailer and added to his collection of bruises and scratches from various activities connected to setting up and leveling the camper.

By the time the tire was changed we were in less than jolly moods, b the beauty of the place soon reaches in and puts the bad mood on the run. We saw beautiful lake views and some fumeroles on the way to the campground. The wild flowers made streaks of purple and splotches of pink, yellow and white along the roadsides and especially when we passed the meadows. There are acres and acres of dead and fallen trees, the results of the fires that periodically sweep the park. We got set up pretty quickly, ate a bowl of cereal for supper and crawled into bed. About four a.m. I crawled back out to get more cover. The temperature had fallen into the forties.

Next day we decided to visit Old Faithful, then retrace part of our route and head south to see the Tetons and Jackson Lake. We had to wait at Old Faithful for about an hour, but, right on time, thar she blew. A man sitting next to Gary asked if we were going to Glacier National Park. We hadn’t planned to, but we’re nothing if not flexible, and changed our plans then and there. He gave us a map and showed us the best route to take.

We didn’t go to church Sunday, but I can’t imagine anyone seeing the Grand Tetons and Jackson Lake and not experiencing worship. If seeing all the beauty that God created out of something as violent as volcanic eruptions and floods does not fill your heart with reverence, awe and worship of the all-powerful God of the universe, I don’t know what could. To see all this and realize that God cares enough for me (and you, of course) to make it possible for me to live in His presence forever is most humbling.

My daily Bible readings have been in Psalms the last few days and Psalm 19 sums it up in the first verse: The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork. What can you add to that but, “Amen”?

Sunday afternoon while Gary was cooking our steaks for dinner a bad thunderstorm came up. There were high winds and hail. One poor fellow camping across the drive from us was grilling some kind of meat for his wife and four kids (who were in the tent) and he didn’t even have a tarp over the grill. One couple had an obvious marital spat, she got in the car, he packed up the tent and they left. You can see human nature at its best and worst in a campground.

Late in the day there was a little commotion in the next drive over from us. An elk was calmly eating his dinner, browsing among the trailers, tents and million-dollar motor homes getting a taste of the great outdoors. We had to be very careful not to even leave a cup of water sitting on a picnic table. The bears are attracted by most anything—and Gary saw evidence that during the night they had checked us out.

On the drive back from Jackson Lake we had come around a curve and saw a line of traffic crawling along, barely moving. It took a few seconds to figure out the reason. A huge buffalo was ambling along in the traffic lane, just like he was a car. He went on for several hundred yards, the cars all slowing to accommodate him. Finally he ambled on off the road, ignoring the cameras clicking like crazy all around him.

I wish everyone could visit Yellowstone and The Tetons. I wish the pictures did justice to the sights we saw.

This morning we battened everything down, hooked up the man truck and headed north. We are now in Butte, Montana, from where we will head for Glacier National Park tomorrow. Then it’s into Canada and headed for Alaska. It doesn’t take much driving in Montana to see why it’s called “Big Sky Country.” Everything else may be bigger in Texas, but Montana has the most visible sky anywhere. It’s something that has to be seen, not just described.

We found a tire store in Livingston, Montana, and bought an extra tire and rim for the trailer. We are now also the proud owners of a hydraulic jack that will make the process of tire changing a lot easier and faster.

Sorry if the blog is erratic. Our cell phone service and wi-fi have been very intermittent. The only place we had cell service in Yellowstone was at Old Faithful, and again today when we got to the north entrance.

Corn, Corn, Everywhere!

            We are safely docked in our campsite near Iowa City, Iowa. The captain had to back the camper in, a feat comparable to docking in a moderate wind or a strong current. We had a lovely travel day. It started out pretty cool, and I changed my usual khaki shorts for long pants when we stopped for breakfast. Yes, that cool! But it warmed up as the day went on and by late afternoon was in the 80’s. Not too bad, though, as there’s so little humidity.

            We spent last night in a place called Enon Beach, Ohio. I have discovered that “beach” is a relative term. This one looked more like one of the fish ponds you see along Highway 701 near Tabor City than a real beach. Neither Gary nor I was tempted to put on a bathing suit. Of course, if you’ve lived all your life within a short drive of the Atlantic Ocean, it’s hard to imagine life without a real beach. It wasn’t a luxury campground, but it was almost dark and we just needed water and electrical hookups.

            If watching corn grow is your thing, I have a thrill of a lifetime trip for you! Start in Ohio and let the green grow and build in your heart. Most of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa seem to be covered with cornfields. Granted, there are cities sticking up among the fields from time to time, and the corn is occasionally replaced by a soybean field, but mostly it’s corn as far as the eye can see. It’s beautiful country, though—rolling hills covered in various shades of green. The farmhouses and silos stick up like images on a postcard and paste dots of color in the otherwise green landscape.

            We left Bull Run fairly early, but not so early as to hit the morning rush around Washington.. You have to be insane to drive in the traffic around there. Maybe that explains some of the recent insanity that seems to have spread far and wide in and around I-495. Avoiding rush hour gave us time to tidy up the camper from our wild party the night before. Cramming six people (at least three of them of the large variety), a large dog and a parrot cage into a 27-foot travel trailer makes for a wild party, even if the strongest drink there is iced tea. But a good time was had by all.

I’ve included a picture of the dreaded pumpout. Anyone who’s seen the movie RV with Robin Williams will be impressed. Anyone who hasn’t seen it ought to rent it. The pumpout scene is worth the price of the rental.

We have covered quite a few miles since leaving Pocomoke on Monday. We plan to spend tomorrow night in South Dakota and will decide whether to swing by Mount Rushmore or keep on keeping on until we get to Yellowstone. Decisions. Decisions.

Maggie is traveling just great. She sits on the back passenger headrest most of the time, or climbs in her “hammock” to catch a few winks. We don’t even put her in the cage now when we stop, just leave the top of the cage open with a perch across it in case she needs to get in to eat or drink. I have one of those indestructible rib cord bedspreads that is at least 30 years old. It makes a great catchall for covering the truck seat and can be thrown in the wash every couple of days.

So far breakfast has been our only store-bought meal. We’ve saved a good bit by eating sandwiches for lunch and cooking up some of the fresh veggies Gary cadged from a farmer in Pocomoke. After living on the boat eight months with no oven, the camper kitchen is luxurious—a three-burner stove top with a small oven, a microwave and a refrigerator about three times as large as the one on the boat is heaven.

Overall our trip has been pretty uneventful—so far. The roads are really good in some places and really bad in others. We actually saw some of Little James’s ARRA dollars at work today repaving some interstate highway in Illinois. It was badly needed so I hope that by the time James is gainfully employed and paying our share of the taxes it’s going to cost that he can appreciate it. We sure do!

Yesterday we had some unusually bad stretches and had the first minor (relatively speaking) mishap since our first excursion with the Prowler. We learned on that first trip to bungee cord certain cabinet doors closed and not to leave anything lying around that might crash into something else and break it. We thought we’d gotten pretty good at stashing and stowing, what with all our experience on the boat, but when we stopped for lunch yesterday we discovered a canister of flour had crashed through the pantry door and spilled all over the floor.

It is not fun to clean up flour. But the remaining flour is now secured in a screw-top canister and lashed securely in place. If you ever plan a cross-country trip in a camper, call me and I’ll give you a lot of tips.

I apologize for the quality of some of the pictures. It evidently got into the grape juice. There seems to be a purple tint on some of them that should be green. For the pictures of our camp at Bull Run Regional Park, I thank Marty Christ. The pictures I took there are horrible.

On the Road, not the River

            First things first. Most of you reading this probably started reading our blog as we were doing America’s Great Loop, which we put on hold last December when we took a break and headed home for North Carolina and Gary’s appointment with an orthopaedist. Since then our friends on Li’l David, Lorenzo and Delois Johnson, have looped on around Florida and are back in Holden Beach.

Our own big news is the arrival of our first grandchild, James Timothy Walker, who was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, on June 11, 2009. He weighed 8 lbs, 2 ozs, and is the delight of our lives as well as of his parents, our youngest son Bill and his wife Melissa.

We have put our Great Loop adventure on hold for the time being and have become landlubbers for awhile. Gary’s knees have healed nicely, and although he tires more easily than he did before, the freedom from pain in his knees has been worth the pain of the rehabilitation and we decided to spend hurricane season on a road trip, hopefully to Alaska. I say hopefully, because we made no plans further than Manassas, Virginia, where our middle son Edward and his wife  Becky visited us, along with a couple we met on the Loop, Marty and Barb Christ. This trip is a spur of the moment, take life one day at a time affair.

            We left Tabor City about 9:30 a.m. on July 10 headed for Pocomoke City, Maryland. We arrived about six and Gary set up our 27-foot Prowler camping trailer in his sister Janet’s driveway. Saturday we spent resting, visiting with family and attending Gary’s 45^th high school reunion. We had a nice time at the reunion, which was held in the old Marva Theater, which has been restored for just such a purpose. Seems the reunions end a little earlier each time we attend one. We were back in the camper by 11:30 Saturday night.

            Sunday was spent visiting with more family and getting reacquainted with some of the younger ones we hadn’t seen in quite awhile. It was great seeing Gary’s brother and his family and his sister and her granddaughter who came by for a few hours.

            We got things battened down so that we could pull out early Monday morning and head for Manassas. We had a nice drive through some typical Eastern Shore scenery and crossed the Chesapeake near Baltimore on the Bay Bridge. The Bay looked calm and quiet today and we reminisced about the last time we were here sailing under the bridge instead of driving across it. We skirted DC and found our campsite at Bull Run Regional Park quite easily.

            The campground is beautiful. The sites are clean and easy to enter and exit. We didn’t even unhook the Prowler, just leveled it and hooked up the amenities and began preparations for dinner. Ed and Becky, along with their newly adopted bulldog, Zoey, arrived soon after we got set up. It was great seeing them and meeting our new granddog. Maggie was ready to defend her territory, but Zoey plopped down on the floor and Maggie retreated to the top of her cage, from which she kept a close eye on the intruder.

            Marty and Barb then arrived and the non-stop talking began. They had brought goodies, including an Amish peach praline pie, which tasted as good as it sounds. But first Gary grilled steaks, to which we added some fresh corn on the cob, baked new potatoes, and tomatoes and squash cut up and marinated in vinaigrette dressing.

            We won’t get to tour the park because we plan to push on toward the west at a fairly good pace. We’d like someday to return and make a tour of Civil War battle sites, but that can wait for another day. We’re much more likely to be able to do that than to get another chance to tour the west, so we’re putting that trip on hold and keeping our sights on Alaska for now.

            Tomorrow we plan to drive to Ohio, and hopefully we’ll soon have more information to share. The pictures below include: Gary, Edward and Zoey; the Chesapeake on a beautiful calm day; Sweet Baby James in his mom’s lap.

You might have noticed that I have not posted any news since December. On December 23 Gary had an appointment with an orthopaedist in Wilmington, North Carolina. He had been miserable from pain in his knees for quite some time and it had literally become unbearable. One look at the x-rays of his knees showed why: he had no cartilage in either knee, where the doctor told him he should have at least one centimeter of cushion.
Gary asked if he could have them both done at the same time and when was his next opening in the o.r. The doctor told him he did not do both at the same time on everyone, but he must have seen immediately how determined (I won’t use hardheaded here) Gary can be. The appointment was made for February 9, 2009, at Cape Fear Hospital in Wilmington. The operation was a resounding success and hardheaded turned out to be a asset in this case. I will refrain from further comment at this time.
The surgery was done on Monday, and Tuesday morning, with the aid of a walker and two physical therapists, the new knees were put to the test. They worked! The next day, with a walker, a physical therapist, and with me bringing up the rear pushing a chair, we went for a stroll down the hall. We came home to Tabor City on Friday, where, to my intense displeasure, the first thing Gary did was sit down in the garage and smoke a cigarette.
He has a therapist coming to the house every day except weekends and has been doing great. He has gynormous bruises on both thighs, especially the left, and scars about eight inches long down the fronts of both knees, but those are a small price to pay to be pain-free. When the pain from the surgery is gone, the pain of bone rubbing against bone in both knees will be gone also. We are very thankful for all the prayers and good wishes of our friends and family. Now, if only my aunt’s prayer that cigarettes would begin to taste to Gary like poop smells, would be answered in the affirmative things would really be great.
We had to go to Carrabelle to unload the boat and it is a sad sight to see Gilraker propped up on the hill.  It took me weeks to get all the stuff from the boat stashed back into the house. I don’t know how we ever got it on the boat, or how I ever thought I’d need all those clothes! Gary plans to go back sometime within the next year and touch up some places where we dinged the hull on rocks or whatever. The prop looks pretty pristine. We’re looking forward to getting back to doing the Loop next winter, if possible. If something unforeseen prevents that we’ve still had the trip of a lifetime.
We miss the company of our boating buddies on Li’l David, but they have promised to call when they get to Charleston and we plan to drive down and ride up with them the last leg of their Loop. We’re keeping up in the meantime via telephone and blog entries. We’re excited at the prospect of following in their wake next year.
In the meantime Gary will continue with his therapy and get his legs back ship-shape. I’ll stay busy sewing baby clothes for little James Timothy Walker, son of our youngest son Bill and his wife Melissa, who is due to make his appearance on June 17, 2009. It goes without saying that the arrival of our first grandchild is one of the most exciting events in our lives.
If all goes well with little James, we plan to take our camping trailer and drive across the country to Alaska and back this summer. Great way to avoid hurricane season, I’d say. So check our blog next summer. We may have a nice little parenthesis off the boat, but on the road. Thanks for all the interest and kind comments!